Wildcat Wine

by Claire Matturro

  Five intervening and snippy women later, after I had given the full name and the file number of Bonita’s case at least ten times, along with my own name and law firm, the company’s in-house attorney finally came on the phone. I identified myself as Kenneth Mallory’s law partner and got blank air for a response. “You know, the lawyer from Smith, O’Leary, and Stanley that your company hired to reopen—”

  “Right. My assistant pulled up our file summary on my computer when you identified it to her.”

  Well, that would explain some of the wait, if not the rudeness.

  “We don’t have any record of a Kenneth Mallory. The Bonita Hernández de Vasquez case is a closed file. What do you want?”

  “You weren’t looking to reopen it?”

  “No. Why?”

  “I guess I made a mistake.” Or had he? “You would know, wouldn’t you? I mean, would someone else—”

  “If we had retained outside counsel for anything, anything at all, on any case, I would know. All that goes directly through me. We had no contact with anyone from Smith, O’Leary, and Stanley, and we had no contact with a Kenneth Mallory. Do you need anything else?”

  Not from you, bud. “Thank you. Good day.”

  So, what, Kenneth was making it all up? That was the only conclusion I could come to. Exactly why Kenneth threatened to file a lawsuit for a client who disavowed any knowledge of Kenneth or the suit remained a huge mystery.

  Bewildered, I grabbed up Kenneth’s will from my desk and wandered out into the hallway of my own law firm, desperate for a soul mate to help me think. I think best when I’m talking. And I talk best when there is at least one other person in the room, although in a pinch Bearess will do.

  With Bonita still among the missing, tired, inarticulate, frumpy Angela won the honors to act as my personal sounding board. Having tracked her to her own office, and freed from the etiquette of polite chatter because she was long used to me, I explained the various connections.

  While I was mostly hoping for that miracle of insight that often happens when I talk out something, I was also open to any ideas from Angela. She was a smart young woman, after all.

  With the burden of all that random information floating in the room, Angela rubbed her belly and stared at the air in front of her nose. Then Angela pointed at the will I had brought with me and said her first word of our meeting: “Patent.”

  What Earl’s patent had to do with Kenneth’s will didn’t immediately connect in my mind, but then I didn’t have all those pregnancy hormones floating through my body. When Angela declined to explain further, I didn’t know if she had a specific notion in mind, or a general guess was at play. Either way, I decided we should see if we could learn if Earl had a patent.

  Angela, being the on-line research queen of Smith, O’Leary, and Stanley, soon had the official government website for patents—www.uspto.gov—up and humming.

  “Try Earl Stallings,” I said when I saw that the options included searching the patent database by name, date, topic, or number.

  Angela harrumped, indicating, I guessed, her viewpoint that she probably could have thought of that herself.

  Type, type, type.

  Nothing under Earl Stallings.

  And about four thousand things under Stallings alone as a surname.

  “Try wine.”

  Another four thousand hits.

  “Try sulfite-free wine.”

  A few dozen hits, but none that had any of the four thousand Stallings names attached to it.

  “Try every other spelling of Stallings you can think of,” I said, hovering and badgering poor Angela at the computer. But I mean, how many ways can you spell Stallings?

  At the sound of soft steps, we both turned around. Bonita stood in the doorway. “I thought I might find you here,” she said to me.

  Angela struggled out of her chair and she and Bonita hugged each other.

  Stifling the urge to feel left out, I asked, “Where’ve you been?”

  “Seeking the mail-room clerk to request that he hand-deliver your change-of-hearing-date notices.”

  “Where was he?”

  “I do not know. To save time, I walked a couple of them over to the lawyers’ offices myself.”

  Before I opened my mouth to suggest that there were better uses for her talents, Bonita said to Angela, “Try Kenneth Mallory’s name.”

  “What?” I asked, a bit rankled I hadn’t thought of that.

  “For the patent search. I heard you”—Bonita looked at me—“when I was coming up, outside.”

  Angela the silent returned to her computer chair, sat down with evident effort, and typed in Kenneth’s name.

  The computer made its little hummy, whirly noises, but returned nothing.

  “Okay,” I said, “try Michael Andrews Daniels.”

  Angela gave me a puzzled look.

  “He is the machinist who Dave and, ah”—here I paused to glance at Bonita—“and Benny found in Myakka. He worked some for Earl. Maybe he—”

  Before I could finish my thought, Angela typed in his name, and a few variations, but found no patents registered under his name.

  Dead-ended again. “Maybe we should go to my office and think this through,” I said.

  With Angela and her bulky inside passenger teetering along in stride, we marched back to my office, where I let Bonita make a pot of coffee while I dialed Philip’s number again, only to be connected with his secretary, who informed me, snippily, I might add, that Philip was still in his hearing, he had other clients, and, as she had already previously assured me, she would have him call me.

  That done, I sipped my newly brewed coffee and waited for inspiration as Angela declined coffee and Bonita stared at me. In the midst of our staring contest, Cristal buzzed into my office over the phone intercom.

  “Lilly, you there? This is me, Cristal.”

  I punched the intercom and answered, “Hey, Cristal.”

  “Bonita didn’t answer her phone and Edith still has me on the front desk. I’m sorry to bother you and all, but there’s this guy out here, your client, the one who used to wear that yellow dress thing. Anyway, he says he really needs to see you. No appointment.”

  I sighed. I needed Gandhi like I needed another one of those crow’s-feet curling around my eyes. “I’ll be out in a second,” I told Cristal.

  In a day during which I wanted no more surprises, Gandhi offered me another one when I saw him in the lobby. There he stood, gladioli in hand, dressed normally if not neatly, in a white shirt, pure cotton, judging from the wrinkles, and jeans. Behind his little John Lennon wire frames, his eyes were their natural hazel and his hair was a sort of stiff gray blond. His face was sort of a blotchy orange, which I took to be the fading stage of his chemical tan.

  “Lilly.” He beamed and thrust the flowers at me.

  “Gandhi. You look”—what, almost normal?—“very nice.”

  “Did you hear yet from the appellate court?”

  “No. Remember,” I said, “I told you that it could be anywhere from two weeks to several months before the court mails me its opinion. But—”

  “Yes, you told me not to be optimistic. What was it you said? That a trial judge likes to grant a summary judgment a lot more than an appellate court likes to affirm one.”

  “Exactly. So as I’ve warned you, we should expect the appellate court to reverse the summary judgment and remand your case for a trial.”

  Gandhi nodded.

  I had the idea that wasn’t why he’d come to see me and was keenly aware of Cristal’s stare as well as that of some gentleman waiting in the peach leather chair that clashed splendidly with our mauve wallpaper border, but that no one else seemed to notice or care about.

  “Shall we step into this conference room for a minute?” I peeked in first to be sure no one else was there, and then led Gandhi into the room beside the reception area.

  “I’ve come to warn you that I believe you might be in some danger.”

>   Oh, yeah, where were you with that warning earlier this morning, when it might have done me some good?

  Ignoring Gandhi for a moment, I put the glads into a big vase in the center of the table and threw the dusty silk flowers that had been there into the trash.

  “Don’t take yourself so seriously,” I said. “And stop doing readings on me. Please excuse me a minute.”

  On the intercom, I buzzed our mail-room clerk and asked him to please put some water in the vase in the conference room within the next ten minutes and not next week, thank you.

  When I turned my attention back to Gandhi, he opened his hands, palms up, in a kind of Jesus-feeds-the-poor gesture.

  “You’ve never trusted my talents, have you?” Gandhi sounded weary. “I might have . . . spiced up the act, but I do have unique powers.”

  “So, okay, tell me who killed Kenneth Mallory.” I meant it as a joke.

  “Aw, your law partner. Yes, I read about that. I am sorry for your loss.”

  Brushing aside his condolences as unnecessary, I was suddenly curious to see what Gandhi could do. “Can you tell me who killed Kenneth Mallory?”

  Gandhi nodded and folded onto the floor in a yogi-meditation position and closed his eyes.

  Oh, yeah, this will work.

  But I waited. Maybe just a bit . . . what? Hopeful?

  Above me, on the wall, the clock made little hints of noise as the hands moved, and I kept my eyes on it, timing both the mail-room clerk with his watering assignment and Gandhi. Ten minutes came and went without any water boy.

  Only my vexation with the mail-room clerk kept me from total boredom as I watched Gandhi posing and breathing on the floor of the conference room. Then he opened his eyes and looked at me.

  “His sister killed him.”

  “He doesn’t have a sister.” Not unless his will was wrong.

  “Then a close female relative.”

  “Cat Sue?”

  “Yes, there is something about a cat in all of this. Perhaps a wildcat?”

  “Why did she kill him?”

  Gandhi shrugged. “You didn’t ask me that.”

  “Are you making this up?”

  Gandhi curled up from the floor and stared at me with serious eyes. “No, I am not making this up.”

  “Then I have some work to do.”

  “One more thing. Keisha has agreed to marry me after all. I found an antique ring with rubies, just like you said. You may have powers too, to so fully have channeled her feelings.”

  I nodded, way past the point where I wanted to discuss my putative psychic powers or Gandhi’s love life.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “I’m very glad for you.”

  “But you have work to do,” he said. “Please do be careful.”

  Nearly gleeful that I had a suspect who wasn’t me, Bonita, Dave, or Benny, I punched in the mail-room number again and said, “If you don’t put water in the vase in the conference room before I finish my next phone call, you’re looking for a new job.”

  Then I punched in Tired’s office number, which I had memorized unintentionally from the sheer act of repetition. For once, Tired actually answered.

  “Gandhi Singh, my client, you know, the psychic? Anyway, he says that Cat Sue killed Kenneth. I thought you ought to know.”

  On the other end of the phone, Tired breathed, but didn’t speak. I was borderline on feeling silly when the mail-room clerk, a teenage boy with blood connections to somebody very important, though I forgot who, came in, glared at me, and poured water at the vase and all over the conference table. And stomped out.

  “Yes, ma’am. That’s probable cause for a warrant,” Tired said as I watched the water run off the rosewood finish and onto the rust-colored carpet.

  “Look, I’m trying to be helpful. You don’t need to be sarcastic. Also, Cat Sue is Kenneth’s cousin.”

  “Yes, I know that.”

  “How?”

  “I’m a detective, ma’am. We find out things. That’s our job.”

  “Yeah? Did you know Cat Sue is Kenneth’s primary heir in his will?”

  Sound of an inhale. Pause. Tired’s quickened breathing over the phone line gave rise to a bubble of satisfaction on my part. “And there’s enough value in his estate to make it worth Cat Sue’s time to kill him. You know, if she’s into that sort of thing.”

  “Lilly, Lilly, ma’am, whoa.”

  Whoa, what? I was solving this man’s case. “But Cat Sue—”

  “Cat Sue has an alibi for the night Kenneth was killed. She’d spent the day in and around Orlando and some of its suburbs, shopping and stuff. Lots of fancy stores in the area.”

  “She went shopping?” To Orlando? I thought. Fancy stores? What, the Disney village? To assuage her grief over becoming a widow? “You got witnesses?” I asked Tired.

  “I got receipts, showing her Visa charges, her signature. I got a guy in a store that remembers her—all that dark hair and the red scarf and the long dress. Made her stand out. I got a video from a jewelry store with her coming and going through the door, grainy footage, but there’s no mistaking that scarf and long dress. The date and time stamped into the film.”

  “Why Orlando?”

  “When she was trying to line up some buyers for the wine over there, she liked the area and the shops. She was, she says, trying to get past the rough spots over Earl.”

  “By shopping?”

  “We all deal with grief differently.”

  “You talked with a guy who remembers her? Described her?” I still wasn’t 100 percent buying this.

  “Yes, ma’am. I did. And in person.”

  Oh. Well, so much for Gandhi’s psychic powers.

  “But look, ma’am, it’s dangerous for you to be messing in this. Stay out of this and that’s an order.”

  Now I breathed for Tired over the phone.

  “You hear me? Ma’am, it’s for your own good. You’ve had two snakes in your car, and that’s a pretty clear warning, you hear?”

  “You take care now, Tired. Stay in touch,” I said, snippily, and hung up. Tired wanted me to back off. No way. Not while a shadow of any suspicion lingered over Bonita.

  On my way past Cristal the certified paralegal receptionist and back to my own office, I said, “There’s a mess in there on the table. Water everywhere. Better get that mail-room clerk to clean it up.”

  Back in my office, Angela and Bonita were peering through a city directory for the Bradenton-Oneco area, to the north of us.

  “Michael Andrews Daniels,” Bonita said. “Remember the fundamentals.” She pushed the open page of the directory at my face. Swamp Man, alias Michael Andrews Daniels, was listed. Occupation, welder. His widow ran a bait-and-produce stand in Oneco, another one of those increasingly rare enclaves of Florida cracker holdouts.

  “We could be at his wife’s shop in half an hour,” Bonita said. “I am not sure how this man might fit into things, but there are the . . . strange coincidences of timing, place, and his connection to Earl.”

  Place—yes, I hadn’t really thought about that before, but Mad’s body was found near the winery, in a section of wild Myakka that backed up to Earl’s property. Mad did work for Earl. And he did die the Saturday all of this seemed to have started.

  Given the possible continuum from Mad to Earl to Kenneth, I thought, Oh, what the hell, why not? Dodging big trucks and slow cars full of old people in the fresh air of a fine spring day to question the widow of a man who died in a swamp with $30,000 in cash would probably do us as much good as anything else.

  Angela declined the invitation to go on a potential wild-goose chase in the next county, but Bonita and I piled into my Honda and headed up U.S. 301 toward Oneco.

  Once past the knot of traffic where the Tamiami Trail and 301 merge in a teeth-grinding melee, I inhaled. “Look, Bonita, I called the in-house attorney for the bottling company. They were never planning to sue you for fraud. That guy, their in-house counsel, had never even heard of
Kenneth.” I waited.

  Bonita sighed and rubbed her gold cross.

  “Kenneth was making that up, I think. Or at least he had never contacted the company.”

  Bonita continued to sit mutely.

  “Maybe Kenneth had some kind of evidence and was going to contact the company later?” I poised my statement as a question, hoping to elicit a helpful and enlightening response from Bonita.

  When no words came, I glanced over at Bonita, though taking one’s eyes off the road on U.S. 301 is a life-defying act. Bonita stared out the window, and rather pointedly avoided looking at me.

  “You knew this?” I asked.

  “Yes. I called a secretary I know with the company.” As she spoke, Bonita turned her face to me, and I flicked my eyes back and forth between her and the traffic.

  “A woman I worked with a long time ago,” Bonita continued. “We were friendly, so she checked around for me. My lawsuit files were in storage. The computer summary didn’t show any recent activity on the case, and there was no record of any contact with Kenneth.”

  I studied on this for a moment. “When did you find this out?”

  “The Monday after he was killed.”

  “So, you were maybe planning on telling me this when?”

  “You’ve been very busy.”

  This time I was the one making the long sigh. “You want to tell me what Kenneth was up to?”

  Bonita didn’t speak. Out of the corner of my eye I saw her turn back to the window. She would either tell me what she knew or she wouldn’t. Like most lawyers, I fancied myself persuasive in the utmost, but I also knew from experience that nothing I might say could make Bonita change her mind.

  We passed the rest of the trip in silence, but arrived in Oneco in record time. As we walked into the produce store, a display of cactus crowded the entrance.

  Bonita stopped and studied the cactus. “I haven’t had any fresh nopales in a bit,” she said.

  “May I help y’all?” A woman with stooped shoulders and thick glasses and a big head of hair that almost balanced out her hips smiled at us.

  “Are you, by chance, Mrs. Daniels?” I asked.